Saving Grace (1986)

July 18, 1986

THE SCREEN: TOM CONTI STARS IN 'SAVING GRACE'

By Walter Goodman

Published: July 18, 1986

THERE'S no more engaging actor around than Tom Conti, but not even he, with the assistance of such notables of international moviedom as Giancarlo Giannini, Erland Josephson and Fernando Rey, can lift ''Saving Grace'' out of its slough of sentiment.

The movie, which opens today at the Coronet, is based on a novel by Celia Gittelson about an imaginary pope, Leo XIV, a man-of-the-people sort of pontiff who wanders away from the Vatican one day and ends up in a picturesquely poor southern Italian hill town, where the main occupation is pretending to be afflicted by an epidemic so relief agencies will send in food. What the town needs is an aqueduct and community spirit, and Leo overcomes much resistance to build both. I have not read the novel, but I assume it was for young readers.

Mr. Josephson and Mr. Rey play a couple of Vatican officials who keep the secret of the Pope's absence from the world. Mr. Giannini plays a goatherd who is redeemed, along with everybody else, by Leo. All are wasted. There is also a deaf girl and a bad boy who is good deep down and townsfolk, who look just the way townsfolk from the south of Italy are supposed to look.

The early scenes in Rome arouse hopes of an unconventional spoof: an official of the Vatican Bank suggests to the Pope that big depositors be given a lock of his hair. But once Leo escapes and begins his good works, everything goes slack. The predictable proceedings, languidly directed by Robert M. Young, are too much for Mr. Conti. The humorous squint, the slightly cracked delivery, the quizzical expression that have served him so well in other roles come to seem affectations as he struggles to squeeze something more than obvious charm out of being a saint in a children's fable.